Pets, phones and less dresses, I guess: That’s what a little bit of sign watching on South Iowa Street has produced today.

• First, pets. All you pet lovers can quit worrying about the future of Lawrence’s Petco store near 31st and Iowa. I had several readers ask if the store was on the way out because it recently had removed the signs from its building at 3115 Iowa St.

A store employee there told me this morning that wasn’t the case. Petco has a new logo and sign strategy, and the Lawrence store is set to get new signs in another week or so.

“We’re not going anywhere,” the employee said, who noted the store underwent a fairly significant interior remodeling in June.

But she said she had fielded several calls in the last few days about what was happening at the store.

“People come in and ask what happened to the sign, and I tell them someone came in and stole it overnight,” she said.

• Beautiful orange awnings are now a part of the South Iowa Street corridor. It looks like crews are getting close to completing the new retail building that is in the northwest corner of the Walmart parking lot at 33rd and Iowa streets.

We previously had reported that the speculation was an AT&T Wireless phone store and a Chipotle restaurant were going to move into the space. Well, the orange awnings probably are all the confirmation you need that an AT&T store is set to move into the space, but we now have official word as well. City officials confirmed that AT&T has filed for a sign permit at the location. Chipotle, however, hasn’t yet filed for a sign permit, so we’ll keep an eye open for that.

My understanding is the new AT&T store will replace the company’s store on 23rd Street. An employee at the 23rd Street store told me a move is scheduled to happen sometime in March.

• Now, about this idea of less dresses. Wait a second, that’s a misread on my part. It actually is dress for less. We’re talking about the Ross discount clothing store that is slated to go into the former Old Navy location near 33rd and Iowa streets.

For several months now, there has been a lot more of the “less” than there has been of the “dress” in the Ross project. We’ve been reporting since January that there was speculation a Ross store was set to swoop in and take the spot left vacant by Old Navy’s closing in early 2012.

This summer, the company pulled a building permit to do about $800,000 worth of work at the store.

By the time the holiday shopping season arrived, Ross had a sign up, but it never did open. I did a little window peeking today, and the main part of the store is completely empty except for a single folding table. For $800,000, I had expected to see gold-ensconced clothing racks, or at least a multistory, dressed-for-less mannequin named Ross. (In seriousness, I heard a lot of the construction was related to the store’s rear loading dock, for whatever reason.)
I’ve tried to get in touch with Ross officials at their California headquarters at various times over the past few months, but with no luck. But I’ll try again and see if I can get an opening date for the store. There are still ads online for part-time sales associates, and the sign still says “coming soon.”